Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Morris County, Kansas.

Official Website

The county was established on ancient grounds of the Kaw American Indian tribe. Settlers and the Kaw lived in increasingly uneasy relationship as settlers encroached on native lands.

Council Grove, established by European Americans in 1825, was an important supply station on the Santa Fe Trail. The Trail was active from 1821 to 1866 across the county. The town was also the site of an encampment by John C. Fremont in 1845 and in 1849 the Overland Mail established a supply headquarters there.

The county was originally organized as Wise County in 1855. The county was named for Virginia Governor Henry A. Wise. When Wise presided over the hanging of abolitionist John Brown at Harpers Ferry in 1859, abolition supporters renamed it to Morris County in honor of Thomas Morris, a former United States Senator from Ohio who was an opponent of slavery.

Between 1877 and 1879, Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, a former slave who escaped to freedom in 1846, staked out a settlement in Morris County for freedmen known as "Exodusters".

Adjacent Counties

• Geary County
• Dickinson County
• Marion County
• Chase County
• Lyon County
• Wabaunsee County

Cities & Communities

• Burdick
• Council Grove (County Seat)
• Delavan
• Diamond Springs
• Dunlap
• Dwight
• Herington (part)
• Latimer
• Parkerville
• Skiddy
• White City
• Wilsey

The county has two named townships named Highland and Overland. There are nine other townships named numerically 1-9.

Links

Wikipedia

Legends of Kansas

Nat'l Reg. of Hist. Places